


Burning Up

by veridium_bye



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendship, Mages, Mages and Templars, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 04:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15766488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veridium_bye/pseuds/veridium_bye
Summary: Inquisitor Amarantha Trevelyan and two of her allies, Madame Vivienne and Lord Dorian, are returning from a mission in the Hinterlands region. Along the way, a situation arises in the Crossroads village that brings them face-to-face with the politics they are entrenched in by birth.





	Burning Up

“Do we ever get to escape the grasp of the Hinterlands, Inquisitor? I feel my body being overrun by the desire to run away and become a pastoral nobody,” Dorian complained as the hiked from they valley towards the nearest camp. The sky was dimming to blue with evening on the wings.

“Agriculture would look good on you,” she responded, her legs dragging with fatigue.

“Please. Lord Dorian couldn’t grow weeds if he wished,” Vivienne teased bitterly. Clearly, moods were not the highest.

When they reached the mouth of the Crossroads town, Amarantha halted. She rolled her shoulders, stretching under the weight of her armor and staff.

“I will check the dispatch to see if we can return to Skyhold sooner than planned,” she said, aimlessly looking at the cottages, their windows shining with fire light from their hearths.

Suddenly, a small explosion. It looked like smoke.

The three mages flinched, but suddenly they all came to the same instinctive fear.

“What was that?” Dorian asked, stepping closer to Amarantha’s side.

“Perhaps a cooking recipe gone awry,” Amarantha said, though the tone in her voice clued into her real concern.

“Don’t be silly. We all are thinking the same thing. I say we keep out of this. Our presence would hardly improve the situation,” Vivienne adjusted her sleeves.

They heard elevated voices coming from deeper within the town. A woman, two voices that were deeper, probably men. No sound of anyone else. Then, a crash. Like an ax blowing through a wooden wall.

“No, we’re investigating. Who attacks a cottage after a cooking mishap?” Amarantha’s voice shook with alarm, and she immediately marched further in. Vivienne sighed, but followed.

As they walked, Dorian scanned the town. “Everyone looks like those neighbors who want nothing to do with the drama but everything to do with the gossip,” he commented, hurried to catch up with Amarantha’s suddenly reinvigorated pace. They finally tracked down the source of the noise. A cottage, with a window singed to black, where the fire must have sought an escape. It was out, though. There was stern voices coming from within, arguing perhaps.

“You can’t take her away from me, she is mine!” A woman yelled. Amarantha looked at Vivienne knowingly.

“You cannot assure intervening would fix things, my dear. You cannot change everything,” she warned.

“No, but they don’t have to know that,” she said, before approaching the door and knocking. She was surprised when the weight of her fist knocked the door open, as it has already been ajar. What she saw was two men, one older than the other, who looked not a day beyond 20. Across from them, a woman, around the same age as the older man. She wore a dirty house dress, her hair disheveled as though she had fallen down a hill. They all looked at Amarantha and her compatriots as if the monster they feared was lurking had made its grand entrance.

“Get out! This is a private home!” the older man threatened, his shoulder hunching over in an act of intimidation.

“Hector, she looks lik—“

“Hush, Carl. I don’t give a nug’s ass about who she is.”

A moment quickly passed before the woman’s breathless voice sounded.

“Inquisitor…” she said, sounding fretful and desperate.

Amarantha crossed her arms. “I do not mean to trespass, ser. But with the commotion, and the circumstances in this region, I felt compelled to at least check to make sure people were safe.”

“Oh, yes, Your Worship. We understand,” the woman responded, stepping backward, as if she were protecting something or someone.

“You won’t get out of this because the Inquisition showed up, Deirdre. This has to be dealt with.”

The man pointed angrily at the corner to which Deirdre was retreating. Behind a barrel and table, the forehead and nose of a child was visible. Her green eyes peered at the Inquisitor with fear.

“What exactly happened to make you threaten a child, Ser?” Amarantha asked, arms falling to her side, her chest blowing up a bit defensively.

“Clearly, the child is capable of more than just house chores and idle play,” Vivienne observed, eyes scanning the scortch marks on the window.

Deirdre’s arms went up. “It was a mistake, she had gotten fire from the pit and—“

“Deirdre.”

A tense moment of no talk confirmed to Dorian and Vivienne what had happened. For Amarantha, it filled her with a sense of dread.

“She has abilities,” Dorian said, hushed.

Amarantha’s ear turned to him, her gaze towards the floor. She exhaled.

“Your Worship, we do not intent insult to you and your company,” the younger man finally spoke up, hands on hips, stressed.

“My mind didn’t go to that precise conclusion, Ser, but thank you for confirming it,” her voice curt.

The older man turned and began to pace with frustration. “I knew this would be nothing but trouble. A mage at the helm of the Inquisition could only spell anarchy for us, who have to deal with the consequences of mages on the ground while you sleep in posh palaces and practice parlor tricks!” he vented. For a man so fearful of mages, he sure was unabashed about provoking their temper.

Amarantha was about to retort, but she stopped herself. She represented more than just herself. She instead turned towards the woman and the child, who was presumably her daughter.

“What is the child’s name?” she asked, trying to soften her tone.

Deirdre’s chin lowered. “My daughter’s name is Veronica.”

The child chimed in. “My name is Veronica, but I wish to be called different.”

Amarantha’s eyebrows raised. “Oh? And what name should I go by, instead?”

“I don’t know yet. But just know, it’s in the works,” the girl was growing more confident.

Amarantha turned and looked at her fellow mages. Dorian was amused, clearly. “A girl with spunk. I do say, she’d fit right in with the Inquisition’s women. It may burn Skyhold to the ground,” he teased. Vivienne’s eyes rolled.

Amarantha approached the girl, stepping beyond her mother. She crouched down to make eye contact at her level. The girl spoke sharply, but her posture told Amarantha everything. She was scared, defensive.

“Veroni—um, Miss. How did you do this to the window?” she asked, hand pointing towards the burnt wood.

The girl’s eyes shifted to and from the burns and the Inquisitor. “I got upset. Carl wanted to slaughter my favorite pig,” she said, her arms behind her back and back against the corner wall.

Amarantha sighed lightly. “And so your hands spouted fire, right?” she said, holding out an open palm. The girl looked down and hesitated, but then she let her right hand come out from behind her. Her hand was warm, feverish with power. Amarantha’s own fire abilities simmered under her skin, feeling the potential that was like itself, but in the body of another. The kind of energy that made currents of itself whenever her and her fellow Mages were in the thick of combat together, feeding off one another.

Deirdre grew more fearful. “We’ve known this for 2 years, Your Worship. She has managed to keep herself out of trouble for most of it. I do not intend to reject her,” she said, rubbing her wrist.

Amarantha’s eyes stayed locked with the girl’s. “How have you stayed like this amidst the rebellion?” she asked, presumably of Deidre.

“She doesn’t wander. When the mages started attacking us, I hid her in whatever place I could find.”

Dorian shook his head. “The girl sounds more like a dangerous pet than a person,” he eyed the men, who he was convinced were the real motivators behind her captivity.

“What else do you expect them to do, Dorian? Post her on the roof like a trebuchet to burn intruders alive?”

“I’m sure you believe my perspectives on magic to be barbarian in nature, Madame de Fer, but I can hardly call basic decency exceptionally foolish,” he spit back.

“Both of you, please,” Amarantha looked back, eyes narrowing with frustration.

“Inquisitor, she is one of many girls like her, dangerous and unsupported. This is why a Circle is the best option for her safety and her family’s, and this is why that goal must be paramount to us,” Vivienne replied, shifting weight to her hip.

“When in doubt, Circle, Circle, Circle. World hunger? Circle. Demonic war? Circle. Bad hair day? Circle.” Dorian chimed in.

“That’s enough.” Amarantha interrupted. She turned back to the girl, who looked even more concerned.

“Miss, I think you know full-well what would happen to you. You don’t look like the sort to leave others to decide your destiny,” she said, head tilted.

The girl shook her head. “The Templars scare me. I don’t want them to take control of me,” the girl said, stepping a bit away from the wall now.

Amarantha’s chest ached. She could feel Vivienne’s skepticism and Dorian’s impulsivity behind her, surging.

“Neither did I. But I was told it was best for others, who did not have the abilities I did,” Amarantha once again placed her palm outward. Smoke began to billow from it, and then a spark, like from a candle. The girl’s eyes glowed with wonder. “You’re like me? You throw fire, too?” she asked, a tone of desperation in her voice.

Amarantha nodded, and then placed out her left palm alongside it. “And this one, this one’s new, but, it glows green when there are demons and rifts around. It defeats them and sends them back to where they came from.”

The girl took hold of Amarantha’s left hand, rotating it, investigating. Amarantha smirked. “For now, there’s none nearby, so I don’t need it. And that is what magic can be: used for protection, to defend those you love and value. It doesn’t have to be uncontrollable, or frightening.”

She took her left palm away and stood back upright, now peering down at the girl. Her eyes lingered on her before turning back to the men, who looked visibly disturbed and on edge.

“My dear, this all sounds very endearing, but I believe we’ve overstepped into a situation already underway, one which we’d best not alter,” Vivienne said, keeping her distance.

The girl noticed all three of them, with their Enchanter armors and staffs, and suddenly it clicked. “You’re all mages?”

Their eyes all looked back at her, and they felt the pressure of a controversial identity pile down on their shoulders. Dorian cleared his throat, and came closer. “Madam,” he said, “Your astuteness is incredible.”

The girl grinned, satisfied with herself.

Amarantha eyed the men. “Magic or no magic, cruelty towards children is uncalled for. You provoke her abilities when you put her into a position of self-defense. This is why Templars treat us as captive pariahs. I may be Inquisitor, but before this I was a mage, a Circle mage, in fact. I come from rejection and isolation on the part of one’s family. I cannot dictate to you your choices, but please know, repression only draws out her abilities in more temperamental and costly ways. Teaching a mage to self-hate is a symptom of a greater, cultural mistake. Please, heed my advice, and change your ways.”

She turned to Deirdre. “I will dispatch materials and notes for her to study, from our own libraries. And our mage tower will also prepare recipe lists for healing potions and apothecary talents, so she may feel as though she can have a purpose beyond destroying things. If you find any other children in the village with these abilities, I implore you to share them.”

Vivienne’s shoulders stiffened visibly. “Home-schooling what the Circle could teach in spades?” she asked.

Amarantha rested her hands on her hips. “The Circles are not stable right now and perhaps never will be. Of course, the world could end, too, why not?” her sarcasm bleeding through.

—

As they departed through the door, the girl ran past the adults, calling out to the Inquisitor. “My Lady!” she said, her bare feet carrying her.

Amarantha looked, and stopped dead in her tracks.

“My Lady, if you can be Inquisitor, does this mean I can be something other than this? Something, someone…good?”

Dorian chuckled. “My goodness, I almost feel tears coming to fruition in my very eyes.”

Amarantha’s chest was full of anxiety. In the girl’s dark hair, oval face, soft and young, she saw so much of herself. Her tattered clothes and calloused hands also reminded her of how different her awakening could have gone, had she not been born in gilded walls.

She inhaled, and her chest froze, as she thought on her feet. “My girl,” she began, her right hand pulling a strand of the girl’s hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear, “You and you alone decide who you are. No Circles, Templars, men, women, anyone, has more power over that than you. One day your destiny will come call, and that day will come soon enough. Stay present, and stay true to who you are, and you’ll be armed for whatever that is.”

The girl’s eyes beamed with a new hope, and new excitement. Her mother’s voice called her back inside, and she returned home. Amarantha watched her go, before re-embarking with her fellow Mages.

“That was…touching,” Vivienne filled the silence. The skepticism in her voice remained, though her comment sounded almost won-over.

“I try, you know,” Amarantha joked, hiking up the hill.

“I hope her Mother makes good on her commitments, or else this village will continue to be in peril,” Vivienne didn’t always agree with the Inquisitor, but she saw optimistic intentions in her, and that earned a few ounces of respect.

“I think the idea of losing her child will compel her, Madame,” Amarantha replied. On the surface, she seemed assured and confident. Or at least, that was her goal. But in her mind, she paced nervously, oscillating between ideas of self-preservation, and those of a new, imagined reality for her and her kind.

Underneath it all, though, the foundation of fear that had been instilled was melancholic. I pray she never has to sacrifice like I do to be seen as a redeemable Mage, she thought.


End file.
